5 Ridiculous Sex Myths From History (You Probably Believe)

Since the sexual revolution of the '60s, we tend to think that sexuality from the Baby Boomers back to the beginning of time was a long history of repressed urges, prudish fundamentalist restrictions and brutal rape politics.

But it turns out that a lot of what BBC dramas tell you about sex in history is just a fanciful cover for sex lives that didn't differ that much from our own. Myths that persist to this day include ...

#5. Victorians Were Repressed and Sexless

When you think about the Victorian era, you probably remember a whole bunch of jokes about how women couldn't show their ankles without it being considered indecent exposure. If they ever did have sex, they would first have to peel off so many layers of clothing that it almost wasn't worth it.

Queen Victoria is rumored to have told her daughter to "just lie back and think of England" when the princess was concerned about having to fulfill her wifely duties on her wedding night. There's even a myth that Victorians covered the legs of their tables because they resembled female flesh.

GettyWe can barely conceal our boners right now.

Frankly, we're surprised that the population of England didn't collapse after men got sick of sobbing their way through sex long enough to impregnate their wives.

The Reality:

It's true that Victorians weren't exactly into halter tops and assless pants. In public, that is. In private, they made up for it by producing extraordinary amounts of porn. And not just any porn, but the type of porn that would make the most seasoned Internet deviant blush and cover their table legs. We're talking incest, rape, pedophilia, orgies, BDSM ... and that's the normal stuff.

GettyShe has a dozen live eels stuffed under that corset. You know why.

Here's a taste from a piece published in 1907:

"Seeing her dressed you'd have taken her for thin, but she wasn't in the least. In fact if anything she was on the fleshy side. Her dark pubic hair, I noticed, climbed all the way up to her navel ... her nipples were set in a small field of light brown hair. Lifting her breasts, I saw that she also had some short, fine black hairs underneath. Her armpits were likewise covered with hair as thick as a man's. The sight of all this healthy fleece caused John Thomas to harden even more. I ripped off my nightshirt and straddled the lovely creature, whose rhythmic movements set my pickle slapping back and forth against her belly."

Alas, Victorians also left their table legs as bare as their marvelously hairy women: furniture-leg covers are a myth originally peddled, ironically, by an English travel writer demonstrating American prudishness to his British audience. As for the famous prudishness of Queen Victoria, not only is the "think of England" exchange untrue, but the Queen's diaries reveal she was extremely fond of sex, and often presented her husband with male and female nude artworks. Oh, and this is after those diaries were heavily censored posthumously by her children.

GettyAre you picturing it? Are you picturing them boning?

So the Victorians weren't exactly Puritans. Then again, neither were the Puritans ...